


Positive

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bullying, Gen, Pregnancy, Teenage Parents, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1219936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fantine's boyfriend leaves before Cosette is born. She's seventeen years old and she's pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the test

After immigrating to the U.S. seventeen years ago, her parents had brought both child and their story of starvation - enough of a history behind them to propel them to keep their daughter well fed all her life. Never a day went by when Fantine could not have bread to eat. She grew up the way her parents could not, with meat on her bones. The American kids who had no worries of hunger teased her, but she carried herself with hearty pride. Fantine was not thin, Fantine was non white, and Fantine was beautiful. She loved the food her parents had fought for her to have, and she did not give a hairy rat's ass what her classmates thought of her weight.

Schoolmates chanted "Fat Fantine" with a wicked grin on their judging faces like it was the most insulting thing in the world, when, really, it sounded close to poetry to her ears. Fat Fantine, the girl of survival, the girl who did not have to fight for a revolution to win one.

That was how she and her family grew up in the United States, how her parents and the five other children that came after her lived. And yet, the barricade of her confidence and pariah-hood, much like everything youthful and strong, came to war.

Her ring-less hand shook as she laid it on her stomach, which, at the moment, was as it had always been. 

But, in months to come, it would grow.

The pregnancy stick she gripped in her sweaty fingers clattered to the bathroom tile. Overhead, the lights flickered as she shivered in their yellow glow. 

Positive.

Positive.

_Positive._

She couldn't bear to look at it again. That white medical pregnancy test, white as the teeth of happy middle-aged parents on T.V., white as the damned bullies that forced her to eat lunch by the library where she met the glance of the assistant there.

She tried to smash it with the heel of her sneakers, as if the test controlled the outcome, as if she could reverse everything. Go back to her boyfriend's ( _ex-_ boyfriend's) arms, go back to the summertime where the boy with a loud laugh flirted with her and kissed her lovingly, go back to those strong hands that brushed the brown hair out of her brown face, go back to the promises that weren't kept.

The pregnancy test skittered behind the toilet. Her knees shook with weakly-restrained sobs.

A shame crashed down on her shoulders. The boy was gone. Her parents were waiting in the dinning room for lunch. Autumn rain beat down on the roof. She was seventeen years old and she was pregnant.

Like she had stepped from a fairy tale to a sob story. 

With terror of the future shaking in her bones, she forced the shame out of her head. There's no stronger human being than the young girl against the world. Fantine would have to be like the test results.

Positive.


	2. three months

A single brown, wood bench sat behind the library, as it had since the school was first built. Tufts of greyish, thin grass sprouted from where its feet were lodged into the dirt; planks of wood were missing from its back. The lone bench was positioned so that the shade of the building would shield it in the morning, but around midday the sun would move on and the bench would be exposed to the heat of the day. 

Three windows looked out at this old structure almost buried in the background of the school. The only time students passed it was when they walked through the library or took a scenic route to the parking lot around the library. 

No one bothered with this bench when there were plenty of nice silver ones to sit on. So no one bothered Fantine when she claimed it as her spot.

Despite the unfortunate angle of the sun aimed directly at the corner, Fantine took to the bench every break, because no other student would have the bench. No other student would have her around, either.

The news had spread fast.

She hated to think about people gossiping behind her back, whispering her name and laughing, so she hid away from the crowds and to the bench. She had seen that bench from the library and thought, "What an awkward place to put a bench!" 

In some parts of her head, she hoped Felix was passing by those windows and looking at her. She didn't want him to regret abandoning her or regret dating her. She just wanted him to know. Know what? Fantine herself only knows that it is some evil feeling she wants him to suffer, or maybe some romantic longing to rush back to her. It does not matter. He does not look through the windows at her.

Once in the hallways, Fantine had seen a kid pat Felix on the back and _congratulate_ him while nodding her way, with a wicked grin on their face. Her ex-boyfriend had shrugged it off as if he only remembered the tally point added to his total number of love affairs. 

Of course, there was another reason she had claimed the bench.

At home - her parents were loving and her siblings defensive of her. Oh God, how she was thankful of their support. They treated her no differently. They scraped money up for clothing for her child and for her future. They kissed her and told her in her first language, "Fantine, we love you." That was what kept her together. She feared the desperation and loneliness that would have claimed her without the support of her parents. Even thinking about the possibility that her parents could have kicked her out made her nervously tug at her hair and chatter her teeth.

At school - she was a target in a battlefield. Before her pregnancy, she had known a glimpse of war. Now she lived it.

Fantine had never been popular before, but dating Felix had opened her up to a world of sleepovers and friendship bracelets. There had been other not-quite-outcasts but not-quite-popular kids who hung around with her, the kind of teens who met by sitting next to each other in the library or partnering up during class only because they had no one else to partner up with. But Felix's group of friends were nothing like that.

Dahlia had given Fantine a pretty seashell bracelet, along with a matching pink one for herself, and Fantine had gasped and adored the piece of jewelry. The promises of "we're going to be friends forever" and "you'll be my best friend my entire life" were also exchanged between Fantine, Favourite, and Zéphine.

Those promises rested in the trash can next to the brown, wood bench behind the library.

A breeze blew through the hair twisted in Fantine's fingers as she sighed along with the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this may be looking grim and similar to canon so far but i really just want to give fantine a happy ending so dont expect a tragic sad ending folks


End file.
